Exhaustion and Exhaustion of Remedies

The administrative idea of exhaustion of remedies is daunting for those who are well, let alone those who are sick, but follow the steps. Your insurance plan will out line its appeal process. Read through and get those steps in order: Start with a claim form, have the insurance company statement explaining the processing of your claim form, prepare a form letter for yourself to use in the case of the need for appeal, you can use it for all appeals (include your policy number, blanks for date of service, blanks for claim number, blanks for date claim submitted, blanks for what has happened since you filed the claim eg claim submitted, claim denied, appeal filed, appeal denied).
Exhaustion is a descriptive word used for this process.

Now after the appeal is denied, where do you go? Many employer plans provide for an employer review of your complaint only after you have EXHAUSTED insurance company avenues. Okay, send them a copy of your file. After they go along with the insurer (usual), you can now go outside to your state insurance department.

For health insurance, ERISA is a killer in obtaining relief from insurance company practices. Basically, it is a federal law that is tilted in favor of any entity that helps pay for your insurance. So, Medicaid and Medicare, employer funded plans, you might be up a creek. You can still file claims but you have a real burden in bringing this kind of a claim.

Task a day insurance: When all the free market economy nuts (nuts because they incorporate the fraud, price fixing and loophole using behavior of theirs as some noble free market economy virtue) get what they want, start examining new opportunities. Once we've all been empowered to go out and hunt down our own insurance policy, and pay exorbitant prices for it, think of the upside: These new plans will be ERISA exempt. If nobody but you is paying for your health insurance you can sue, sue and sue again for every hideous thing an insurance company does. And we should.

Who do you contact? Health Insurance Runaround

Anyone who has tried to contact their insurance provider knows that there are layers upon layers of people, departments and subcontractors to whom they are referred.

Task a day insurance: I learned this one the hard way. Get written confirmation from any "voice" on the end of the line who assures you of coverage after you follow insurance company step of notifying them that you plan to use a specific service.

Be specific, tell them you need a confirmation that authorizes the treatment and reimbursement for that treatment that also includes any other specific hoops you will have to jump through such as receipts. Understand that HIPAA does not always protect you from having to share results from testing..including the results of psychological testing in order to be eligible for reimbursement.

The second thing to know is that subcontractors, for instance companies that handle the assessments of need for long term care are operating as AGENTS of the insurer. This is a good thing because your INSURER is responsible for the actions of its subcontractor in many instances. In reality, the INSURER will try to claim ignorance so make sure every contact you have with the subcontractor is also communicated to the insurer.

It's not ECO friendly, but you need a file, a copy, a written word of everything that transpires.
Some may keep it on their computers, some using loads of paper, but the file is worth it. Don't worry if it's not perfect, keep the paperwork.

The answer to the RUNAROUND is that TURNAROUND is fair play. Start your own campaign of writing and notifying your insurer. For you, it will only require sending additional copies of your communications. If you think something fishy is going on allege it, you're probably onto something and as long as you insert the words, I believe it seems like....you're fine.

Make these papers part of your PHR. The PHR, the personal health record is encouraged to put the onus on patients to keep track of their medical prescriptions, conditions, etc. The good news is that a lot of this will be taken care of by keeping track of your money because insurance statements include what you were charged for in the first place.

Obamacare, Valeant, Making a Killing, Literally

 Obamacare, Valeant, Making a Killing, Literally

Valeant Pharmaceuticals is the flashpoint for a conversation that quite frankly should have been addressed by the self-proclaimed “reformers” when it came to smug self-congratulations on passing Obamacare. Like many other problems that have emerged with Obamacare, the philosophy and practices outlined in the Act ENABLED rather than prevented bankrupting American people who have the misfortune to become sick in our country.

The PPACA incentivized two OLD-TIME GAMES played by health insurers and providers that puts us in peril, first allowing for increasingly narrow networks of providers, especially specialists which essentially limits access to needed medical services for the sick and secondly by omitting any requirement that prescription drugs, ALL prescription drugs be counted towards a patient’s out of pocket maximum.

Instead, our rights under the PPACA merely codified the old-time, inadequate concept of leaving patients without access to needed medical services and medications in the face of insurance company denials with their only recourse being to appeal decisions of denial of coverage and seeking exceptions to denial of coverage of specific prescriptions.

Sure, if you’ve got the money then paying for those needed services in cash remains AS IT’S ALWAYS BEEN an option. But if not then the PPACA is merely business as usual—and worse—you’re up a creek, Death by Denial.

I LIKE what Valeant did, because instead of the death-by-1,000-cuts approach of other drug prices which even according to the, “Go business,” view of the Wall Street Journal have increased 76 PERCENT over the last five years (http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-prescription-drug-makers-price-increases-drive-revenue-1444096750, Joseph Walker, 10/5/2015), Valeant simply and LEGALLY raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet overnight.

It was that enormous and overnight increase in price that finally got our silly politicians to notice that WE, the consumer had finally noticed yet another bad outcome of Obamacare that they SHOULD HAVE disclosed and fought against before the ridiculous plan became law in 2010.

Instead we’ve got the government class wagging their fingers at Valeant, with more money about to be wasted as we pay these lame ducks to hold yet another “investigation” off taxpayer backs (this time the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging) into Valeant’s conduct.

Because Obamacare incentivized this sort of endless increase by omitting any requirement that prescription drugs be covered by health insurance plans AND that such expenses for prescription drugs that are covered MUST contribute to out-of-pocket maximum, neither of which is true under Obamacare, those who need prescriptions omitted from insurance company formularies are essentially sh*t out of luck (see HealthCare.gov, Getting prescription medications, advising patients denied prescription drug coverage to try and APPEAL).

As for the ever-predictable Republicans with their allegiance to “free market,” the secret’s out: They APPROVE of the Obamacare provision that will end the lives of people unable to get their prescriptions covered by insurance or afford the out-of-pocket costs for those prescriptions as part of their idiotic capitalism argument of whatever the market will bear in terms of prices charged.

So what is the sudden politician uproar about Valeant about, the public finger-wagging and attempts to shame the company into better behavior?

FIRST, Valeant is being targeted by politicians as a distraction away from what the situation really proves which is that the criticisms of Republicans by Democrats and Democrats by Republicans were both true when it comes to Obamacare.

It proves that Democrats are right, the Republican inaccurate reliance on the “free market” and whatever that market will bear results in THIS.

The Valeant situation also validates Republican criticisms of Obamacare that Obamacare’s primary goal to save government money by forcing insurance companies to cover certain things that not all subscribers need while leaving subscribers vulnerable to bankruptcy or no access to needed medical services and medications when they’re sick by raising coinsurance, copayments, and deductibles, and in the case of drugs increasing the number of medications that are NOT COVERED results in THIS.

SECOND, Valeant has gained attention because of the sheer AMOUNT OF THE INCREASE in its prices. This argument is silly—There is no limit on what they’re allowed to charge that’s why we’re hearing the word “immoral” rather than “illegal” around the story.

Increasing drug prices have been addressed before, with even the Go Business! Wall Street Journal reporting on 10/5/2015 in an article by Joseph Walker, “For Prescription Drug Makers, Price Increases Drive Revenue,” noting that “…the 30 drugs analyzed by the Journal averaged 76% over the five-year stretch from 2010 through 2014. That was more than eight times general inflation.”

So what increases are moral? Obviously it must be somewhere between the seemingly perfectly acceptable 76 percent increase in prices overall and Valeant’s price increase on Daraprim of 5,000 percent.

In between we know that Gilead came under fire for its $1,000 pill for Hepatitis C (http://www.wsj.com/articles/gileads-1-000-hep-c-pill-is-hard-for-states-to-swallow-1428525426) with public outcry prompting an attempt to get rid of Gilead’s patent which here in the US continues though China rejected it.

We also know from a 10/20/2015 report by CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/20/investing/drug-price-hikes-martin-shkreli-valeant/), “Sticker Shock: Drug Prices with Price Hikes of Up to 1,200%,” by Matt Egan, that Horizon raised the price of its drug Vimovo 1,170 percent from 2013 to 2015.

THIRD, desperate to do “something,” the federal government is running around trying to wipe the egg off its face as citizens live through this next revelation of what Obamacare really IS for citizens and what Republican’s pro-business stance really IS for citizens by acting as if they’re “outraged” and seeking to find SOME LAW, ANY LAW or any REGULATION that they can use to “stick it” to Valeant.

VALEANT’s business conduct is the hook that our politicians are using to try to clear themselves and their anti-consumer policies. Whether the allegations and examination lead to some or any finding of wrongdoing is NOT relevant for consumers because it won’t be based on the price hike but instead on some business practice that politicians hope to find Valeant violated. Unless they’re stockholders in the company (the stock has dropped precipitously).

This leaves us where we started…NO LIMIT on what can be charged for prescription drugs, because ultimately VALEANT isn’t the problem, it’s the result of Obamacare and its failure to require that prescription pharmaceuticals be covered by health insurance plans AND that any out-of-pocket expenses for those prescriptions must be included in consumers reaching their out-of-pocket maximum under their health insurance plan. 

Democrats are Doing it to Us Again, Virginia Medicaid Expansion

 Democrats are Doing it to Us Again, Virginia Medicaid Expansion

Far from bringing us closer to universal health care or coverage, Obamacare, a partnership between insurance companies and the federal government created a tepid, minimal requirement for health insurance policies focused largely on the cheap treats, finite costs of free checkups and preventive services, that left those ill arguably in a worse position than before with larger out of pocket expenses in the form of deductibles, copayments and coinsurance and an out of pocket maximum established by the government itself that could crush an individual or family dealing with illness.

While Democrats will pull all sorts of half-informative "metrics" and stats out to "prove" things are better, Obamacare is only a country success in a fairy-tale portrayal that ignores its rotten roots, the very partnership between government and insurers, allowing both to reduce their spending per capita through a variety of means.

But there was an Obamacare bright spot, the expanded Medicaid program that boomed, with states embracing the federal dollars to provide essentially free health insurance and health care not only to the economically disadvantaged, as the program was designed to help, but to an expanded group of those with income and potentially assets as they offered "eligibility" and coverage for those with income and removed any assets test.

But this false narrative has already Obamacized Medicaid. Medicaid program payments traditionally were shared by the states and federal government to provide health insurance and health care to the poorest, sickest individuals in our country. Under expanded Medicaid, the federal government picks up most of the bill, so it's a win for states. But how about the individuals?

Medicaid was designed as a fallback for those who couldn't obtain health insurance, not as a giveaway, or as a change to our healthcare/health insurance system. Governments have always had the right to come after the estates and potentially other assets of Medicaid recipients to help recoup their losses. So why haven't they?

What stopped an endless steady flow of states suing individuals for the Medicaid payments was that oftentimes this was not a money winner for states. After all, by its very nature Medicaid was available to those who had not enough to afford health insurance. Going after these individuals with limited assets was not lucrative for the states, especially since they had to share the money they got back with the federal government, because remember both state and federal contributed to coverage.

In 1993, the federal government decided to make it MANDATORY for the states to go after the estates of those 55 and over who had received Medicaid in order to recoup some of their money. This mandate was necessary for the very reason stated above, states weren't systematically going after the estates of people who were poor and incurring that administrative clog and expense just to recover money they would have to share with the federal government.

Enter Obamacare, expanding who is eligible for Medicaid, meaning that people with means were now eligible for free health insurance and health care within certain income constraints, though any consideration of their assets was put aside. Technically, this meant that someone who owns millions of dollars in assets can get the free treats from government. But remember, the 1993 law is still in place, so their assets are now subject to Medicaid cost recovery by the states on behalf of the states and the federal government.

There was never a free ride, but Obamacare made things worse for individuals seeking a solution to the outrageous costs of health insurance and health care which were not solved by Obamacare at all as evidenced by the explosion of new Medicaid enrollees.

But expanded Medicaid was just another Obamacare band-aid, designed to provide temporary relief so that the government could brag about all the newly insured AND get its money some other way, and it has.

Long before the idea of requiring those receiving Medicaid to work, which makes perfect sense post-Obamacare since Medicaid was changed into a type of welfare entitlement program rather than a government sponsored health insurance program for the poorest and sickest among us, states like New York expanded their definition of "estate" to have access to recover more assets.

Under Obamacare you can be above the poverty level, you can be working, you can have assets, you can be healthy and still be eligible for the program. Calling it Medicaid is a bit of a stretch and Obamacare designers knew it and therefore left the Medicaid recovery rules of 1993 in place, in addition to room for additional state and federal rulemaking to allow or mandate additional recovery options for governments.

It also made such rulemaking much more likely because the federal government pays for the majority of the costs of Medicaid under expanded Medicaid for these increased numbers of newly eligible people.

The drawbacks of this mislabeling of the expanded Medicaid as Medicaid and all the "celebratory" comments for the state of Virginia in the news this week, are a disappointing turn for Americans. Not only does Medicaid NOT offer free healthcare and health insurance, but in fact creates ongoing liability and potential recovery from government but it prevents real policy change to address the untouched health insurance and health crisis problems in the United States today.

Therefore, demand more from your "sources." Celebrating Medicaid expansion in Virginia is as foolhardy as celebrating the passage of Obamacare was based on false narratives. Medicaid is already a government sponsored program that has the tools for governments to recover their costs and those who choose Medicaid are gambling that neither their state nor the federal government will exercise that right.

Who do you contact? Health Insurance Runaround

 Who do you contact? Health Insurance Runaround

Anyone who has tried to contact their insurance provider knows that there are layers upon layers of people, departments and subcontractors to whom they are referred.

Task a day insurance: I learned this one the hard way. Get written confirmation from any "voice" on the end of the line who assures you of coverage after you follow insurance company step of notifying them that you plan to use a specific service.

Be specific, tell them you need a confirmation that authorizes the treatment and reimbursement for that treatment that also includes any other specific hoops you will have to jump through such as receipts. Understand that HIPAA does not always protect you from having to share results from testing..including the results of psychological testing in order to be eligible for reimbursement.

The second thing to know is that subcontractors, for instance companies that handle the assessments of need for long term care are operating as AGENTS of the insurer. This is a good thing because your INSURER is responsible for the actions of its subcontractor in many instances. In reality, the INSURER will try to claim ignorance so make sure every contact you have with the subcontractor is also communicated to the insurer.

It's not ECO friendly, but you need a file, a copy, a written word of everything that transpires.
Some may keep it on their computers, some using loads of paper, but the file is worth it. Don't worry if it's not perfect, keep the paperwork.

The answer to the RUNAROUND is that TURNAROUND is fair play. Start your own campaign of writing and notifying your insurer. For you, it will only require sending additional copies of your communications. If you think something fishy is going on allege it, you're probably onto something and as long as you insert the words, I believe it seems like....you're fine.

Make these papers part of your PHR. The PHR, the personal health record is encouraged to put the onus on patients to keep track of their medical prescriptions, conditions, etc. The good news is that a lot of this will be taken care of by keeping track of your money because insurance statements include what you were charged for in the first place

Obamacare Lawsuit More Politician Showboating

 Obamacare Lawsuit More Politician Showboating

No doubt you'll have read the headlines about the Texas led lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act based on the Republican move to lower the individual mandate tax from its current levels to zero in 2019, effectively getting rid of any federal penalty for not having health insurance. Full stop. For consumers, who cares?

Though courts do nutty things, they're usually not cutting edge, they're often a day late and a dollar short when it comes to their pronouncements and those pronouncements are usually pretty narrow, so it's extremely unlikely that anything but the individual mandate will be considered and it likely won't be considered "unconstitutional" but will remain dormant until Democrats get in power and in their budget change the $0 penalty back to a dollar amount. We'll leave that to the legal wranglers.

More frustrating for consumers is another lawsuit about government money, not about either fixing or getting rid of Obamacare. After all, where did that $3 billion in individual mandate fines paid to the IRS go? The government can't tell us. Even the Obamacare facts website doesn't explain where taxpayer individual mandate fine money goes, it's just another taxpayer petty cash pot of money available to be spent by the federal government.

For the partisans arguing about how big a deal the individual mandate lawsuit is, it's not. Insurance companies already have a Republican approved idea for sticking penalties to consumers who don't purchase their product, continuous coverage provisions.

Continuous coverage provisions are where insurance companies penalize individuals who didn't purchase their product in the prior year by way of higher premiums. In some ways this could actually be worse than Obamacare if the partisan showboaters don't address a money and time limit on such continuous coverage penalties.

For the backwards-looking Democrats trying to resurrect the idea that it was only through the individual mandate that insurers could capture those least likely to purchase their product, the young-healthies, no one should take that seriously because when it came to using young people as a tool in kowtowing to insurance company, Obama and Obamacare failed.

FIRST: Young-healthies did NOT take one for the team and enroll in silver-level plans to help fulfill the myth of the single risk pool. They did not think it was way cool that they could be charged more based on the Obamacare ratio of 3:1 rather than 5:1, meaning that the prices charged to old people could only be three times as much as those charged to the young instead of five times the amount charged to the young. Don't take my word for it, look at the facts.

SECOND: After dismal enrollment by the young-healthies in their silver-level plans, healthcare.gov, CMS and insurance companies complained that young people were purchasing the cheaper bronze plans even though they wouldn't get the cost sharing benefits available to lower income Obamacare participants who purchased silver plans. Young people were right…If you're earning money and you're a young-healthy, attractive to insurers because you're less likely to need to use your insurance, why would you pay extra for a possible benefit in the event you needed to use your insurance? It made little sense.

THIRD: The government had a new idea and for subsequent benefits years to strong-arm the young-healthies by raising the price for silver plans less than they raised the price for bronze plans, so now it would seem logical not to pay the bigger increase in the cost of worse plans and maybe the young-healthies would reconsider the silver plan alternative. Nope, it didn't work.

FOURTH: The Obama Administration made a last-ditch effort to compel young-healthies' participation when CMS essentially outlawed the use of short term health insurance plans making individuals liable for the individual mandate tax penalty if they had such health insurance, specifically addressing the use of such plans by young-healthies.

FIFTH: When Hillary Clinton started her failed campaign for President, her idea was to pacify the unhappy insurance companies who even with the individual mandate complained they needed more enrollees by proposing to violate the citizen or legal resident participation rule of Obamacare and change it that anyone, legal or not could buy into Obamacare.

Further, Obama's government deal with insurance companies missed their best bet on getting young-healthies to participate in more expensive plans and that was through their employed parents. Older people purchase more expensive health insurance plans and their families enroll in these same plans when they are added as dependents.

While "allowing" the employee class to cover their grown children's health insurance up to the age of 26 on their own employer-provided health insurance, the stupidity of Obamacare is that it actually discouraged parents from doing so in two ways.

FIRST, for their under-employed children, enrollment in Obamacare bronze plans was likely cheaper than what parents would pay for these grown children as dependents on their more expensive health insurance plans. It would make more sense for these grown children to purchase their own plans and for parents to provide funds for such plans than to carry them on their parents' insurance.

SECOND, the increased costs for copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles in addition to overall premium price increases made these employer plans less attractive and feasible as an alternative for grown children, in the worst cases becoming casualties of the family glitch where dependent coverage became unaffordable to workers, thereby leaving grown children on their own who purchased the cheapest plans they could.

Real Consumer Fix: The primary consumer fix to health insurance costs as a barrier to rather than a means of obtaining needed health care and health services is a governmentally set out of pocket maximum and a dollar for dollar income tax credit for any and all medically-related expenses whether they are for insurance plan covered expenses or not.

CMS gets to determine our out of pocket maximums each year. This is the OOP maximum and sadly has reached levels that can leave most families broke if they're paying for needed medical care and services. Obamacare's OOP rates illustrate the problem, from 2015 self-only coverage limits of $6,600, family coverage limits of $13,200 to self-only coverage of $7,350 and family coverage of $14,700 in 2018.

Remember Obama's deal with big pharma to leave them free from regulation and that prices have gone up 10X the rate of inflation AND that insurance plan formularies are excluding more and more of these potentially life-preserving and life-saving drugs making them ineligible as part of your OOP, and you can see the problem. Insurance companies should not be able to partner with government to exploit individuals' healthcare needs by ignoring the costs of these needs and disallowing them from contributing towards an individual or family OOP. Similarly, deductibles, copayments and coinsurance costs would all contribute (as they often do) to the OOP.

The biggest reform needed is to bring the OOP down to a percentage, just like costs of health insurance, not exceeding X percent of a household's income, PERIOD. The second step is to prohibit the exclusion from OOP calculation of any needed medical service or product, PERIOD. This would protect consumers in two ways, first allowing them for the first time ever to calculate the potential costs of healthcare per year and second would incentivize insurers to stop excluding from coverage more expensive items and treatment or people with pre-existing conditions.

The individual mandate is simply political partisan showboating. Not a single one of the public officials who today are reaping the benefits of taxpayer funded health insurance and superior benefits off our backs could care less about consumers. We have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and read through the doubletalk and we shouldn't miss it. 

The Mentally Ill Platform of Today's Democrats Should Worry Everyone

I do not treat mental illness lightly and unlike Democrats like Hillary Clinton who constantly accused her detractors as "crazy," I also don't casually use that word. But I'm using it here for the warning signs that Democrats, as a group, are becoming the party of delusion and that having failed to win an election as the party of illusion, and without some influx of rational thought are becoming dangerous.

This is a mental health issue and the Democratic verbiage that is threatening the lives of others is a well understood sign of mental disorder…Not free speech, not opinion, not dialogue, a hallmark of mental illness: Representing a threat to themselves and others.

It began with Obama, whose ability to maneuver timing and sales strategies and enabled him to win a second term using both skills despite the bomb of Obamacare with its most draconian pronouncements perpetrated against consumers taking effect in 2014, four years after its passage and neatly after a second election win.

The endless deceptions and lies to the American public earned Obama a winner of telling the LIE OF THE YEAR in 2013, "If you like your health care plan you can keep it." Credibility for Obama was not regained by those who didn't buy into his salesman pitch because reality did not match what he'd said on Obamacare and other issues.

Obamacare was Democratic illusion at its best. But as Hillary Clinton realized she couldn't just ride Obama-style coattails to get elected, after all, the Obama created illusions were already cracking under undeniable reality, Democrats turned from illusion to delusions.

Suddenly the political Democratic tale-spinning that had worked so well to convince voters, as Obama pal and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber advised on how Obamacare passed because of the "stupidity of the American voter," wasn't working. Instead, en masse, Democrats started believing that all non-Democrats were "Nazis," or stupid or as Hillary often said, "Crazy."

Democrats too far gone to know better believed President Obama who bragged that Trump was "Unfit," another mental illness warning sign of not of Trump's but Obama's own mental fragility which though requiring professional treatment for specific diagnosis could be rooted in him being an abuser or merely projecting, where Obama was seeing his own incompetencies as President in Trump.

The delusion was complete as media fancifully predicted the "sweep" for Hillary, blaming false "metrics," or false information, or Russian conspiracy instead of the obvious that regarding a "win," saying it just didn't make it so.

Suddenly the "Party of Tolerance" en masse was calling anyone who disagreed with them on anything deplorables, the phrase coined by their candidate and a glaring example of the intolerant, backwards, rambling in language of prejudicial judgmentalism that combined with their Obama years conduct indicated the sheer intolerance, small mindedness and dishonesty of the Democratic Party that so obviously contradicted their claims of tolerance and progressiveness that many Democrats simply couldn't vote for Clinton. I could not.

Defeat exacerbated the party's mental illness to where Democratic expressions of hatred and incitements to violence were tolerated at best and oftentimes supported by Democrats as they watched their most outspoken fans embrace the madness. Robert De Niro, bully in chief, using his bully pulpit to express hatred in foul-mouthed rants. Kathy Griffin and her beheaded Trump. Last year's Shakespeare in the Park criticizing Trump via the play Julius Caesar.

This has been the trajectory of the Democratic Party and to me it's a frightening trend indicating that the Democrats of today and their party represent a threat to themselves (as it becomes harder and harder to defend their conduct let alone vote for them) and others.

And so we get to Peter Fonda and Pat Dussault, and naturally, Melania Trump's jacket. Days after mentally ill advocacy for pedophilia and for pedophilia against a President's child, using the threat to others standard, Peter Fonda's lukewarm apology was considered by the Dems as enough of a reason to stop covering his threat against the President's child, advocating for his kidnap and placement in a cage with pedophiles, and even inspired Fonda supporter Democrats like Pat Dussault who threatened "we're" coming for Donald Trump Jr.'s child Chloe.

For me, the pessimistic ugly Democratic truth is more obvious in Peter Fonda's "apology" asserting, "I tweeted something highly inappropriate and vulgar about the president and his family in response to the devastating images I was seeing on television."

Apparently what Peter Fonda saw was children being ripped from mothers and being put in cages with pedophiles. And perhaps there are some pedophiles in the population of illegal migrants, that's not an indictment of all illegal migrants, that's a fact of populations, they are diverse and include all kinds and it's also the rational reason why we do scrutinize individuals with children rather than argue that the children should be left with adults, who no doubt aren't all loving and who no doubt aren't even all their "parents" amongst a population of other unvetted adults. In fact, Peter Fonda was arguing for separation of children from unknown adults.

Yet, not surprisingly there's more news coverage and Dem "outrage" about Melania Trump's jacket which said, "I don't care. Do U?" than there has been about the horrendous barbarity of today's Democratic spokespeople.

Let's say you're in the Democratic delusion where everyone who disagrees with you is a crazy, Nazi deplorable, from that dark viewpoint the First Lady's jacket could only "mean" one thing, she doesn’t care. But let's say you're a sane person who knows that the First Lady's child was threatened with kidnapping, child rape and brutalization, as was her niece AND you were trying to raise children who would have to deal with bullying of this and other kinds during their lives…What might you say?

Might you follow the stopbullying.gov website's advice to children who are being bullied and model that behavior? That site advises: "Look at the kid bullying you and tell him or her to stop in a calm, clear voice. You can also try to laugh it off. This works best if joking is easy for you. It could catch the kid bullying you off guard." Might Melania's jacket be a message to her child about the uncivilized assault he'd just faced, a reassuring mother modeling that she too is bullied and ignores it, or jokes about it rather than is crushed, depressed or becoming suicidal about it?

Barron Trump is 12 years old, a vulnerable age for children without having to put up with Peter Fonda talking about how they should be raped as he feeds the Democratic delusion of "tolerance and progressiveness."

I am ashamed of the way people are speaking about our President, his family and his supporters and I hope that at every level we begin to encourage treatment and healing for the party of delusion and its dangerous policies derived from their pessimistic world of hate, contempt and intolerance, and that's the Democrats.